Planned day off.
Tuesday: 2 walk, 10 run
AM: Westerly, RI. CCC. Led a crew cutting the recently flagged southern trail of the new WLT Cottrell Preserve. All trails are now cut, except for one in the middle that we don't yet have consensus on.
PM: Hopkinton, RI. Technical trail run with Brady. Roughly planned this out in my head (the route description below only makes sense or interest if you know these trails):
- Parked at Canonchet parking lot on North Road. Ran white to Canonchet Trail (yellow?) to Stubtown Road, left on Stubtown (turns from dirt road to paved) coming out to North Road just where the pavement ends, right on North Road (dirt road) for a mile to the Long Pond/Ell Pond trailhead, then south on Narragansett Trail (including new section south of Stubtown Road) to Lawton Foster Road North, right on that road until it turns to dirt, then left on Canonchet blue trail almost to Route 3, but turning on the last white connector and then north again on Canonchet Trail.
This was a tough route with over 1,000 feet of vertical and lots of very technical and steep single-track, oddly enough interspersed with easy and flat dirt road connectors. We saw a man and his dog in the very first mile, and then no one at all for the next nine miles! I had no idea of mileage and as I came up to the car my watched showed 9.89 miles. Well, I have to finish this one, as I made little circles in the little parking lot while Brady looked me at likely wondering what was wrong with me.
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| I'm pretty sure in the past that Brady just jumped over this small chasm between the rocks, but today he just stopped dead and looked at me. So I went back carried him across on the rocks above him. |
Wednesday: 11
AM: Westerly, RI. Five mile loop, with Brady, of trails from Wahaneeta into Woody Hill and back. Didn't see a soul out there!
PM: Charlestown, RI. Six miles solo on roads, from Charlestown's East Beach. Felt a little tight, but decent. Yet another windy day. Average 6:40 pace did NOT feel difficult.
Thursday: 10
Westerly, RI. Joined the Mohegan Striders' 50th anniversary for the month of May: Brazen Hen weekly fun run. Every month during 2022 the Striders are featuring one or more free events to encourage their members (and apparently neighboring clubs) to attend. Ran five miles solo pre-event, and then five miles with Jeff Anderson as we had a good conversation on races, how shoes are radically changing, and other topics.
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| Pre-run group photo. |
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| Mingling post-run at the Brazen Hen. This one was called the "Two Presidents" shot! (center of photo with Mohegan Striders President Al) |
Friday: 11
AM: Westerly, RI. 5 mile solo road run from Avondale. Kept reminding myself to slow down in advance of a double race weekend.
PM: Westerly, RI. 6 mile easy trail run and project reconnaissance run at Grills with WLT employee Marc, and Brady. Spent the most time trying to figure out where and how best to install "water bars" to reduce erosion on the steep downhill trail on the south side of Big Hill. Trail should have never been built that way, but it's probably decades old, so let's fix what we can.
Saturday: 10
New Shoreham, RI. Shad Bloom 10K Trail Race. Write-up to follow.
Sunday: 8
Stonington, CT. Mystic 10K. Write-up to follow.
Weekly mileage: 60
Weekly synopsis: Happy with this week's results. My races weren't especially fast, but I got 60 miles in and a good mix of runs, pretty evenly divided between roads and trails, so that's all good. I also got in one trail run with good hill ascents and descents, and need to get in more of those, especially with Laugavegur Ultramarathon coming up in July with a 500 meter elevation gain in first 10K, followed by a 1,000 meter drop over the rest of the course.
Weekly highlight: The 10-mile technical trail loop in Hopkinton. My race performances were decent but not great.
Weekly lowlight: Sudden return of warm and humid weather.
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